Includes bibliographical references (pages 133-148) and index.
Contents:
Beckett's safe words : normalising torture in How It Is / Dominic Walker. Murphy and the Tao of autism / Joseph Valente -- Narrating disruption : realist fiction and the politics of form in Watt / William Davies -- 'no human shape' : unformed Life in The Unnamable / Byron Heffer -- Beckett, Evangelicalism and the biopolitics of famine / Seán Kennedy -- 'He wants to know if it hurts!' : suffering beyond redemption in Waiting for Godot / Hannah Simpson -- 'as if the sex matters' : Beckett, Barthes and Endgame in love/ James Brophy -- Beckett's queer time of Défaillance : ritual and resistance in Happy Days / Nic Barilar -- Beckett's safe words : normalising torture in How It Is / Dominic Walker.
Summary:
"This book examines why Beckett's writing is so queer, so disabled and disabling. Why did Beckett write so often about mental illness, disability, perversion? Why did he take such an interest in 'abnormals' and 'degenerates'? How did he reconceive 'the human' in the wake of Hitler and Stalin? Drawing on Beckett's voluminous archive, as well as his primary texts, the authors use psychoanalysis, queer theory, disability theory and biopolitics to push Beckett studies beyond the normal."-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.